Best Self Help Books For Men

12 Empowering Self-Help Books All Men Should Read

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Go to any bookstore and you’ll see the self-help section bursting at the seams with books promising to make your dreams come true. Despite the implied promises of getting rich, finding your passion, or meeting your true love, most of the time, these books fall flat with little results.

But why? Aren’t positive thinking, goal-setting, affirmations, and activating the law of attraction all it takes? It could be that conventional wisdom is recycled repeatedly, but lacks the true substance to help someone gain traction and spark personal growth.

However, there are some self-help books that act more as true guides for meaningful change because they showcase unique, mind opening perspectives and their lessons are based on timeless principles. The kind of principles that guide you towards a greater personal strength that pulls you in the direction of your deepest dreams.

The books featured below fall into the latter category. Whether you are looking to take on a new career path, relieve everyday stress or simply wish to better yourself and learn something new, these self-help books will not disappoint.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson

Shockingly stoic and uncompromisingly pragmatic, each chapter of this book drives home a profound lesson on life, while reinforcing how critical it is to be your true, authentic self and pursue what is meaningful to you.

Manson describes how societal, cultural and familial norms can influence your daily decisions on what to pursue to make yourself happy. He goes on to write how normal this is and how insidious it is at the same time. You grow up, go to a good university, get married, move to the suburbs... and on and on. One day, you look in the mirror and your 40 - 50 years old and wonder where did it go? And you're overcome with the painstaking realization that your life was spent in the pursuit of things that you never really cared about at all.

While there is nothing wrong with that, Manson writes, there is something profoundly wrong with giving a f*ck about things forced on you externally. Like a zombie, you wander aimlessly going through the motions without living in the present moment with the kind of mad passion that gives life meaning or emotional charge. Manson drives home the point that you should give your f*cks to your sense of purpose that is meaningful to you and not give a f*ck about anything else.$14.25 at Amazon.com

Make Your Bed - Admiral William H. McRaven

Written by a Navy Seal and 4-star Admiral, this book contains heartfelt lessons learned in real-time in an environment of honor, duty, discipline, and sacrifice. Between the lines, you can sense great humility, determination and courage is communicated with tremendous depth and compassion.

The lessons were inspired by the Admiral’s speech at the graduation commencement at the University of Texas in Austin which went viral across the globe. The lessons he communicated about how small things can add up to create great personal change for yourself, but also help the world are the basis of this small, but profound, guide on positive change.$12.96 at Amazon.com

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey

Covey’s book is a timeless classic of evergreen lessons on how to create personal change for the better and make a significant impact on the world. This book’s lessons take an 'inside/out' approach focusing on working on the inner qualities to forge positive habits. Habits like being proactive or being reactive, focusing on the end result, working on 'first' things, empathic communication, personal renewal, and more.

If you take this book’s lessons to heart and practice them diligently the effect can be profound. Like taking raw steel and pounding it out into a smooth, polished blade of steel, you can create yourself from the ground up and realize your true potential.$9.98 at Amazon.com

Unfu*k Yourself - Gary John Bishop

Ever find yourself on a hamster wheel with no sign of progress? If you've ever experienced that feeling that you're running in place — no matter how hard you try to push forward (metaphorically speaking of course) — then you need to find a way to get beyond that. In the end, the author writes, you have the life you settle for, not the one you aspire to.

Fair warning: This book can be harsh. And, to be fair, sometimes a combination of abrasive truth combined with tough love is needed to shake you up, so you can realize your true potential instead of living beneath it. The greatest cheerleader on your journey will be Bishop himself through page after page of bitter medicine, which steels your spine while nudging you forward to your goals.$11.54 at Amazon.com

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Marie KondÅ

Science has revealed that your environment has more to do with your motivation, emotional balance and state of mind than you would believe at first.

KondÅ makes the case that your quality of life and actions will be greatly impacted by maintaining order in your surroundings. More, she details how achieving greater environmental order will create a greater sense of control and peace of mind. This book is a starter tool to help you master the art of creating order from chaos in your surroundings, which should lead to a positive impact on your life as a whole.$9.69 at Amazon.com

Tools of Titans - Tim Ferris

World-class blogger and podcast phenom, Tim Ferris, interviewed the best of the best among business, arts, athletes and world-class performers in their chosen field to find out the critical factors that helped them become the best at what they do. Through carefully crafted questions that led to key discovery points. He reveals the common thread to success that can help you model their success in your own life.

How they think, their mindset, their approach, the questions they ask themselves, diet, supplements, exercise, routines, key strategies, and more are carefully detailed for your benefit to help you reach the full potential of your abilities and go beyond them.$19.57 at Amazon.com

12 Rules For Life - Jordan B. Peterson

Turn on the news on any given day and you’ll get the impression that the world has taken a madness-pill. Wars, police brutality, school shootings, terrorism, prejudice, racism, and more create a sense of hopelessness about the future followed by depression and a sense of isolation. So, how does one make it in a world that seems to be losing faith in its once-great institutions and governments?

Dr. Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist and professor who emerged as a social media sensation as he attempted to address these issues. Millions have flocked to his YouTube videos as he tackled tough subjects about human malevolence, self-care, evil, human potential, and religion.

Peterson’s fierce intellect was tapped to offer how an individual can move confidently through rampant chaos and create a life of substance through self-direction. In this book, he offers guiding principles to be true to yourself regardless of what happens around you. While at the same time, making you aware of the dark parts of human nature and how to prevent them from taking hold of your mind.$15.52 at Amazon.com

Willpower Doesn’t Work - Benjamin Hardy

Traditional self-help carries with it the image of the self-made man who forges ahead despite the storms of life and the endless distractions. The teeth-gritting willpower of a man possessed with his goal and willing to die for it. This is a romantic notion that doesn’t exactly fit the constraints of daily life or raising a family.

Hardy challenges the preconception that willpower is the root of positive growth by calling attention to controlling your environment, the science of positive habit formation, and developing routines to make positive change happen as if on auto-pilot.$14.99 at Amazon.com

Are You Ready to Succeed? - Sirkumar S. Rao

Despite a prestigious position, an impressive title and a six-figure salary, Dr. Rao was miserable and unhappy early on in his life. He seemed to have accomplished everything he set out to do while thinking it would lead to happiness, but he ended up depressed and wondering if this was all there was to life.

His questioning his station in life and how he got there brought him to the realization that external goals and cultural standards can cause you to pursue what you think will make you happy and fulfilled, yet fall short. He claims happiness is a practice put in motion through the disciplined use of habit and actions and details how to put your life back into your control instead of pursuing someone else’s dreams.

After reading this book, you will have the tools to go from pursuing goals to be happy to happily pursuing goals while creating a more meaningful life.$12.95 at Amazon.com

Having It All - John Assaraf

Assaraf had every excuse to fall into a life of mediocrity, but his desire to pursue success led him on a journey of personal power. This journey brought him knowledge of science-based methods of positive change that took him from a troubled street kid to a multi-millionaire businessman.

Assaraf painstakingly details the tools and methods that let him recreate himself from a refugee to law-breaking street kid to recreating himself into a business powerhouse who achieved all of his dreams, financially and personally.$15.76 at Amazon.com

Barking Up The Wrong Tree - Eric Barker

Barker’s take on self-development has a strong contrarian streak that runs conventional self-help dogma through the filter of hard science. In the end, what’s left is the finished truth of what works and what doesn’t.

This book takes you on a journey of pirates, musical prodigies, legendary athletes, and assorted outliers to reveal the extremes of human potential and their consequences — positive and negative. In the end, you’re left with a rulebook of self-help principles that take you down the true path of self-growth instead of a winding path of 'feel good' traditional self-help methods that lead to little or no progress.$16.12 at Amazon.com

The Five Minute Journal - Intelligent Change

Studies reveal that the average person experiences over 50,000 thoughts every day. 50,000 emotionalized thoughts that are fighting for your attention, while draining your mental bandwidth and leaving you too tired to even process them. This state of mind can leave you feeling out of control and powerless to take control of all the overwhelming details and obligations that swirl through your thoughts daily.

However, this book makes the case that a simple 5-minute exercise can help you get the most dominant ideas out of your head through journaling to regain a sense of control again. This journal is aimed to help cultivate gratitude and improve positivity, by prompting you to reflect upon the positive moments of your day.$22.95 at Amazon.com

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